Caroline
Lucas inadvertently destroys the case for us being #BetterTogether. The
case for a new Scotland (not discussed here) is, as I'm sure most will
agree, fundamentally about democracy. This is where we need to look at
ourselves and ask what a democracy really is.
http://youtu.be/YdEriGO3r8U
We have been told that America is the world's greatest democracy. = WRONG!
We have been told that Iraq has been given democracy. = WRONG!
We are still being encouraged to think of Britland as a democracy. = WRONG!
In a democracy there is a democratically elected chamber of ministers.
Between the chamber and the public realm there is a lobby where
representatives of industry can meet with ministers in order to
influence them prior to making decisions that will affect those
industries. This is called 'lobbying'. It doesn't always happen in the
lobby but the ministers have the final word based on the mandate they
were elected upon.
A corporatocracy is when the interests of
the bankers, financiers and large multinational corporations have been
allowed to bypass the earlier democratic process and have taken up a
controlling position from within the state structure.
In this
instance there is nothing that the voter can do to affect change as they
are only able to select different actors to play the various roles of
what can only be called a corporate charade.
This is not 'just
the way it is' and there are various examples of democracies in
operation all around us who do what the big money men hate the most.
They give power to people who don't have money. Finland is one of the
first countries that comes into my mind as its local democracy is one of
the closest to the people in the world and entire healthcare systems
have been altered to overturn serious societal health problems within
the year based on community action. Iceland was the first country in the
whole world to solve the so called 'crisis', wrote themselves a
constitution and their GDP per capita is now virtually the same as the
UK. There is a great deal of wealth in the UK but the state is designed
to retain as much of it as possible at the top and has done for
centuries. 31% of British children live below the poverty line. That is
disgusting and should be challenged any time anyone advocates the
continuation of this elitist structure.
Scotland is in a unique
position to start from the position of democracy and write into our new
constitution barriers and restraints to corporate interests. We will
decide what you get to do within our economy and you will be expected to
pay your fair share of the tax. This is no utopian fantasy or idealism,
this is real but those who have their vested interests in the corporate
sector are behind much of the misinformation for the very reason that
this means that there may well be another economy out of the control of
the multinationals. We have so much to protect and so much we can do
that we mustn't allow weak mindedness and cowardice to hand control of
our wealth - that can lift our children from poverty to opportunity and
see our society flourish with confidence and positivity - to the narrow
interests of the most greedy and some would say evil in our world.
It's time to take the power back and we can only do that with a YES vote in 2014.
